A year after opening its Branch Sale Office at Vijayawada, Rashtriya Ispat Nigam Limited (RINL), the corporate entity of Visakhapatnam Steel Plant, has exuded confidence that it will become a major beneficiary due to the booming housing activity in and around Amaravati.
Asked to comment on their plea for preferential treatment to RINL for construction of the people’s capital, RINL chairman-cum-managing director P. Madhusudan said that Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu had instructed all concerned to give preference to use Vizag Steel, the products manufactured by the Navratna company in the city, for various purposes. Infrastructure, housing, and education projects are coming up on a grand scale in the capital city, and RINL’s products will have strong demand.
Ready-made market
“Our steel is finding a ready-made market as there are signs of big housing boom in the capital region,” he told The Hindu on Sunday.
Presently, RINL is able to supply 5,000 tonnes. The requirement of flat products will be 60-70 % and the remaining is for long products. As RINL specialises in building long products, it will have a lion’s share of the requirement.
“We will have a distinctive advantage over other rivals due to savings on freight cost,” he pointed out.
Mr. Madhusudan said that the Chief Minister had also promised to use RINL steel for construction of multi-purpose Polavaram project after the Centre agreed to fund it as part of a special package.
Attributing significant rise in the per capita production and improvement in techno-economic parameters, he said they would achieve full rated capacity of 7.3 million tonnes from 2018-19 onwards with net profit.
In the subsequent years, he said they were hopeful of wiping out the accumulated losses with the projections that the demand for steel would regain momentum after a year.
